


listen to how great my heart is

by halfcharacter



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Brief references to drugs, F/F, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Pre-Overwatch, Roommates, Unrequited Love, domestic angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 16:28:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19908745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfcharacter/pseuds/halfcharacter
Summary: There’s a spider busy starting a web in the corner of their kitchen window, above the plants. A new lodger who moved in overnight it seems, since Lena doesn’t remember ever seeing it there before. She briefly considers grabbing the paper towel and squishing it, but something in her stops at the thought.Maybe it will eat all the damn fruit flies, she thinks, and promptly forgets all about it.





	listen to how great my heart is

**Author's Note:**

  * For [besselfcn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/besselfcn/gifts).



> For Lee <3

“You cannot know. You’re destroying me. You’re good for me. You’re destroying me. You’re good for me. I have time. Please, devour me. Deform me to the point of ugliness. Why not you?” 

― _Hiroshima Mon Amour_

* * *

There’s a post-it note on the kitchen table when Lena stumbles in at eight thirty-four in the morning, pulling open the fridge door and blinking blearily at the assorted produce there. Lots of vegetables, fruit too—cartons of strawberries and half a dozen apples and green pears, prime and ripe, just on the edge of sweetness and ready to be consumed.

Lena pulls the marmite jar out of the fridge and goes to make toast instead. She’s sliding the bread into the toaster when she spots it—a square of pale yellow against the red and white checkered pattern of their table-cloth.

She picks it up. There, in that unmistakably loopy writing that used to take her a solid ten minutes to decipher:

_I will be at practice until later. Do not worry about me._  
—Amélie

Lena gives it a quick once-over, before tossing it into the rubbish bin. They had each other’s mobile phone numbers, so Amélie could always text message her. But no, like someone out of an actual arthouse European film, she had to leave messages on paper in her beautiful calligraphed handwriting like it was still 1969.

The toaster pops, and Lena idly eats her toast whilst thumbing through the latest news on her phone.

There’s a spider busy starting a web in the corner of their kitchen window, above the plants. A new lodger who moved in overnight it seems, since Lena doesn’t remember ever seeing it there before. She briefly considers grabbing the paper towel and squishing it, but something in her stops at the thought.

Maybe it will eat all the damn fruit flies, she thinks, and promptly forgets all about it.

* * *

Amélie and Lena moved into their tiny London flatshare a couple of months ago. The true modern dream—sharing the rent on a tiny parcel of overpriced city real estate. It features two glorious views: one over from the kitchen sink of a couple of mossy rooftops, complete with laundry and a handful of chimney stacks, and the other down into the street below upon which the daily battle for London street parking rages.

Still, it could have been worse. When they had met, Amélie had taken her hand in her own, smelling faintly of lavender, her nails perfectly manicured, and said that it was really a joy to meet her.

Lena had looked up from Amélie’s unbelievably soft and moisturized hand in her own distinctly un-manicured and un-moisturized one, looked into her eyes (rimmed with soft brown kohl, of _course_ ) and thought: _Well. I’m fucked._

Amélie was quiet, and French, and extremely upper-class in a way that should have been extremely irritating but yet somehow wasn’t. She was an upcoming ballet dancer, Lena learnt, but had trouble making friends among her peers due to the fiercely competitive and often backstabbing nature of the industry. This she confessed almost ashamedly over a late night cup of chamomile when Lena had (admittedly rather cross-faded), wandered out of her bedroom at three in the morning looking for snacks.

Lena, in a fit of absolute stupidity, had taken one look at her, offered her the packet of crisps she had been holding, and said, “well you don’t need them anyway. You have me. I’ll be your friend. And I can’t dance worth a damn, so you don’t need to worry about me outperforming you in anything.”

Amélie had laughed, taken the crisp packet and opened it, offering Lena it first.

And Lena had thought maybe she was in love.

* * *

The day is hectic and stressful, as most of Lena’s days usually are, since trying to get into a competitive aviation program, especially one run by Overwatch, seems to be getting harder and harder with each passing year. As a result, Lena doesn’t think about Amélie until the evening, when she comes home to an empty, dark flat.

She had said she wouldn’t be home until late, and God knows sometimes ballet practice and performances have weird hours, so Lena doesn’t think about it too much as she heats up leftover curry in the microwave, eats alone whilst watching television, before flopping into bed and drifting off into sleep.

If her dreams involved a shadowy figure stumbling across the threshold, moving erratically as if they were drunk or grievously injured, Lena didn’t remember them.

Amélie is gone when Lena wakes up and goes to classes the next morning. And the next morning. And the one after that.

* * *

The thing is, Lena can understand being busy. She’s busy, everyone in her social circle is busy. She hardly ever physically sees Emily nowadays. Overwatch is ridiculously stringent with its application process, and Lena wants to make sure her package is perfect. This is her chance to get into a transnational program and finally get some amazing flight experience.

But having a roommate turn almost into a ghost overnight? That was weird.

So in-between classes whilst she’s grabbing lunch, she shoots Amélie a message.

_Hey! Havent seen you for a bit. Which is weird bc like, we live together lol. So wanna do dinner together tomorrow evening?_

She sends it before she realizes that the last part definitely sounds like she’s asking Amélie on a date.

_And by dinner i mean like, u make that awesome french dish u made a while back, and i do something helpful like buy the wine bc i am never cooking again after that pasta incident, and we have a chat or something?_

Amélie doesn’t reply, and Lena starts to wonder if it was something she did. She replays all of their previous conversations in her mind, but other than her generally being a bit of an oblivious idiot sometimes, which Amélie was aware of and used to by now, nothing stands out.

The problem is, Lena doesn’t really know any of the friends Amélie does have. She’s mentioned a Gérard sometimes, but whether he’s a boyfriend, a regular friend or just someone in the business she knows is a mystery. Lena also doesn’t have his contact info either, which renders that a bust. She also knows from accidentally eavesdropping once on a terse phone call that Amélie has living relatives, but they’re all in France somewhere, and there’s no way to know who they are or how to contact them.

So she calls Emily.

“Lena!” Emily calls, and in the background Lena can hear the sound of her cat meowing for food. “Hi! Sorry, it’s Pudding’s dinner time and you know how he gets when the wet food isn’t placed in front of him in _literally two seconds flat_.”

“Is this a good time?” Lena asks, curling up on the sofa and tucking her feet underneath her. “I don’t wanna interrupt you if you’re like, busy or anything.”

“Nah luv,” Emily replies, with the sound of a metal food dish being set on tiled floor. “You know I’ve always got time for you.”

“It’s… kinda weird actually,” Lena admits, picking at the skin around her thumbs. She abruptly remembers Amélie’s perfectly even nails, and stops guiltily. “It’s about Amélie.”

“Oh? Did something happen between you two?”

“Nah, nothing like that. Well, nothing I think. She’s just… she’s always out of the house now, and I never see her.”

“Well, she’s like, a pretty big deal in the dancing world right? She’s probably got a big performance coming up and she’s doing extra practice.” There’s a pause, and Lena can hear Emily taking a long sip of tea from her mug. “Speaking of which, if she’s got one of those wouldn’t she have told you about it?”  
  
“Yeah, that’s the thing. She used to tell me when that stuff was going on. But this time, nothing.”

“What’s her company name? You could look them up and find out who the manager is or something, ask.”  
  
“Uh….”

“You have no idea what her company is, do you?” Emily has that tone now, the one that sounds remarkably like Lena’s mother, and Lena makes a face and sinks further into the worn cushions. “How the heck can you not know?”  
  
“I don’t know!” Lena blurts out. “She’s like… super quiet? We don’t talk about that stuff. I mean, the business side of stuff. I know she’s _in_ one, and she’s performed some really cool roles, but when I press for more details she kinda goes quiet and changes the subject to something else.”

“Are you like, sure that she’s actually a ballet dancer? She’s not lying to you is she? Like some bad movie where there’s a spy or an assassin and they have a cover story so no one gets suspicious?”

“Okay, _no_. That’s just stupid. You haven’t been watching bad telly again have you?”  
  
“The only kind of telly nowadays is bad telly,” Emily replies. “And I mean it. All the thespian types I ever went to school with were like, really open about it. They made damn sure you knew they were an _artiste_.”

“She’s absolutely a dancer, okay? She just… she moves like one. She’s so long and leggy, she’s like if someone told you ‘draw a ballet dancer’. She’s who you’d draw. She’s so graceful, and put-together, and she eats organic food and shops at markets and never, _ever_ touches microwave dinners. I honestly don’t know how she does it.”

“Sounds like someone’s in love,” Emily says in a sing-song voice. Lena opens her mouth to reply, but Emily beats her to it: “Oh _Christ_ , Pudding! Really?? Sorry Lena, I’m gonna have to ring you back sometime, Pudding just threw up all over the carpet.”

“Oh yikes,” Lena grimaces. “Yeah, go ahead. It’s probably nothing anyway. I’m just overthinking it.”

Am I though? She wonders to herself, as she stares at the firmly shut front door, hoping Amélie will appear through it, smiling, having gone down to the farmer’s market that day and buying a truly ridiculous amount of produce.

But she doesn’t, and Lena disappears into her bedroom. She shoots Amélie another text before she falls asleep.

_Hey, just checking. is everything okay?_

* * *

That night, unlike her usual dreams which involve flying, seeing the world and getting to meet all the famous Overwatch personnel she’s admired since before she can remember, Lena has a dream that leaves her shaking and sweaty.

In it, she’s running down a street in the middle of the night. It’s pitch black and everything is smudges of grey, but Lena feels the overwhelming urge that something is chasing her. She can’t tell dream-Lena to turn around, so she has no idea what the hell is actually behind her, but she keeps moving, acutely aware of the fact that if she doesn’t, she’s going to be consumed alive.

The flat is just up ahead, the lights on like a beacon of safety in the dark. Lena skids around the corner, past the corner shop, and yanks open the building door. She takes the steps two at a time, heart pounding in her ears and a stitch aching in her side until she reaches her front door. Dream-Lena is wearing only pyjamas and doesn’t have the front door key, so she bangs on the old wood instead, frantically.

“Amélie!” Dream-Lena yells. “Please open the door! Help me!”

But the door remains shut, and Dream-Lena whirls around just in time to see an enormous, disgusting black spider climb up the stairs to the landing, fangs wickedly sharp and dripping.

She opens her mouth to scream, but no sound comes out as the spider envelopes her in darkness.

When she wakes up, Lena goes straight to the kitchen window. The spider web is finished now, a truly remarkable feat of animal engineering and beauty, but the spider itself is nowhere to be seen.

She destroys it.

* * *

It’s a week before Lena sees Amélie again, and the only reason she hasn’t yet rung the police is because there are still visible signs that Amélie is living in the flat. Her shoes disappear regularly, the groceries that Lena won’t consume are still depleting slowly, and her toiletries occasionally move around in the bathroom. 

Still alarming though, so when Lena comes home one day from class and hears the shower running, she breathes an audible sigh of relief, feeling the tension visibly seeping from her bones.

When Amélie comes out, she tells herself, she’ll ask her if she’s okay and she needs anything. She doesn’t want to like, butt in or anything. They’re roommates, they’re...friends, but Amélie has her own life and if she feels as though Lena isn’t entitled to know what goes on it in then that’s fine, right? It’s not like they’re _dating_ or anything. Maybe Amélie found a boyfriend. A... girlfriend? Maybe that’s it. Maybe that's all it ever was.

But an hour passes, and the water keeps running, and honestly they can’t afford to pay a water bill that high. So Lena knocks on the door.

“Hey, Amélie? Did you fall asleep or something? Wait, how would that work, you need to be standing up in the shower and I think that’s nearly physically impossible. Anyway, you okay?”

There’s no reply, and Lena immediately fears the worse. She rattles the handle, but the door’s locked, so she takes a deep breath, prays that the landlord won’t charge them a fortune for this, and shoves at the door with all her might.

She’s a small person, but like most places in London, the entire infrastructure of the place is old and in dire shape, so the lock breaks remarkably easy and Lena nearly goes flying as she stumbles into the bathroom, because the floor is ridiculously wet.

Amélie is sitting in the bathtub in a simple black dress that’s soaked right through and clinging to her skin. Her eyes are wide and vacant despite the spray hitting her face and dripping into her eyes. Lena swears a few times before pulling the towels down from the rack and dropping them onto the tile to attempt to assuage the rapidly spreading puddle emanating from the bathtub, before reaching over and turning the water off. It’s freezing.

That seems to wake her up out of her stupor. She turns to Lena slowly, as if moving through molasses, and blinks a few times. Lena takes her arm. She’s cold.

“Qui…?” she whispers. "Qui es-tu ?"

“It’s me,” Lena replies. “Lena? Your roommate?”

Amélie’s hand shoots out and grabs Lena’s arm in a vice-like grip. Her nails are ragged, almost bitten to the quick.

“ _Help me_ ,” she hisses. “You have to—”

Then she lolls forward as if in a trance, and abruptly passes out.

Lena hoists her out of the tub, wet fabric and all. She knows logically she has to get her out of the wet dress, but in all her idle fantasies this wasn’t the way she had envisioned this going.

Maneuvering a limp person is difficult, but Lena’s had practice doing this for drunk friends before, and she manages to pull the clinging wet fabric from her roommate, completely pliable. Lena checks her pulse, but it’s there, and she appears to be breathing fine, so it’s probably just exhaustion. Stress and exhaustion, that was always a thing for performers, right? She’s probably just overworked herself and needs a few days to rest.

Lena rubs Amélie down with a towel and cracks open her bedroom door. She’s seen into this room a fair few times, and it always seemed like the perfect fantasy bedroom you saw in adverts or on social media posts. A few plants, a few posters of French cultural icons, even a series of photographs of a place called Château Guillard, wherever that was. Notably no photos of family, but there were a few photos of Amélie herself, hair pulled up tightly in a bun and pointe shoes on her feet. Even during Amélie’s general absent status, she hadn’t gone in, mostly because that seemed like a gross violation of privacy.

Now, as Lena maneuvers the both of them into the bedroom, she curses herself for being so stupid. The bedroom is nearly stripped bare: the posters and photos gone, the plants withered and desperately in need of water. Thankfully the bed is still there and made up, so Lena drops Amélie onto the covers and goes to find her pyjamas.

She could have sworn Amélie had more clothes than this. Everything left in her drawers is either impractical or uncomfortable for sleeping, so Lena darts into her bedroom and grabs a pair of shorts and a t-shirt to help her into.

It’s weird, seeing Amélie, so poised and delicate and refined in Lena’s faded Overwatch shirt and sleep shorts. It feels like trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle when there’s only one piece missing, but the piece left in the box is from a different picture and won’t fit, because the edges are all wrong.

But Lena tucks Amélie underneath the covers instead, pausing to wipe the strands of her still-damp hair from her pale forehead.

In the morning, she promises to herself. She’s going to get them some help.

But when the morning rolls around, Amélie is gone. When Lena enters and turns on the light, there is no Amélie, and the remainder of her possessions have disappeared. The clothes have been left neatly folded on the bed, and as Lena approaches, she can see a post-it note in that familiar handwriting. With shaking hands, she picks it up.

_I will not be returning._

When Lena stumbles into the kitchen, still dazed and confused, she notices the spider is back, busily constructing a new web in the exact same space where the old one used to be.

Lena kills it.

* * *

_a few years later_

“Human, machine, we are all one within the Iris,” Mondatta says, and Lena finds herself smiling. Here it is. The chance for peace between human and omnic, a reconciliation.

That does not happen.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
